The present invention relates to an adjustable span staple, particularly useful in the technique of bone surgery.
It is known that until presently, for example in order to straighten a bone, the usual practice is to carry out an osteotomy of such bone, consisting of a more or less deep transverse wedge cut of the concerned bone, a correct positioning of the concerned portion of such bone by drawing together the two faces of the cut until they match, then fixing the two portions, above and below the osteotomy, by means of a staple, and finally plastering the limb until the bone structure has knilted.
A typical situation is a crooked leg, that is where the shinbone has to be straightened out by aligning it with the thighbone; in such a case the osteotomy is carried out on the shinbone, the lower portion of the shinbone, below the cut, is straightened out and correctly positioned, and then fastened in such position through a staple which is driven into the shinbone above and below the osteotomy, thus maintaining the two bone portions in proper relationship. Thereafter, as stated above, a plaster also covering the thighbone is applied to the limb until the bone recovers.
It is clear that in such a situation the limb, a leg in the present case, is to be immobilized for at least forty days and the knee joint cannot be used, neither can the patient rest on the foot.
In the known art, such as the above mentioned case of a shinbone operation, the employed staples have fixed spans, i.e. the distance between the upper arm and the lower arm is fixed and predetermined for each type of staple, so that a large number of these staples are required in a hospital since the cuts are different each time as for what concerns the extension, the depth and so on.